Vampire Most Wanted(75)
The question made her pause with the salad halfway to her mouth. Setting the loaded fork back, she peered at him silently.
“Anything,” he said quietly. “How long have you traveled with carnivals for instance?”
Divine relaxed a little and contemplated her fork. She didn’t suppose answering that would be a problem or reveal anything she shouldn’t. “Pretty much since carnivals began,” she said, and then added, “Well, I think the first one was around for a couple years before I joined a competitor in 1901.”
Marcus nodded and took a bite of casserole.
Relaxing even more, Divine slipped the balsamic salad into her mouth and felt her eyebrows rise. She thought she might like this better than the creamy one. It had a bit of tang to it that she enjoyed.
“And before the carnival?”
Divine swallowed her salad and took a drink as she thought, and then set down her glass and admitted, “Before turning to carnivals I rode and lived with the Comanches.”
Marcus’s eyes widened incredulously. “Seriously?”
She smiled faintly at his expression and nodded. “They called me Naduah.”
“Naduah,” he murmured. “That’s pretty. What does it mean?”
“That depends on who you ask,” she admitted with amusement. “I was told by the chief who gave me the name that it meant ‘she who carries herself with dignity and grace.’ However, a rather nasty and jealous maiden once told me it means ‘she who keeps warm with us,’ and the way she said it suggested I did so in a rather X-rated fashion.”
Divine grinned at the scowl this brought to Marcus’s face and shrugged. “As I said she was jealous. The chief listened to me when I advised him and allowed me to ride into battle with the men. I suppose she thought I’d slept my way into the chief’s good graces to be allowed to do so.” She smiled and then added, “Even if the chief was wrong and it did mean ‘she who keeps warm with us,’ it would be true. I shared their fire of a night.”
“You couldn’t have stayed with them for long. They would have noticed your not aging,” he said.
“There were different tribes of Comanche; the Yamparikas, the Jupes, and the Kotsotekas, and they all had different bands.” She shrugged. “I moved around the various bands for a while, but no, I wasn’t with them for as long as I’ve moved around with carnivals.”
“And before them?”
Divine sighed and set her fork down. “Marcus—”
“Tell me . . . please,” he added softly, and then offered, “If you do I’ll tell you about myself.”
She stared at him briefly, then nodded and picked up her fork again; gathering some casserole on it, she took a bite, chewed and swallowed and then admitted, “Before the Comanches I was with the Romani.”
“Gypsies,” he said softly and she nodded.
Divine smiled crookedly. “They called me Nuri. It means Gypsy.”
“So even to the Gypsies you were considered a Gypsy?” he asked with amusement.
She smiled wryly. “Well, I moved around even more than they did. I’d travel with a group for five or ten years and then leave and find another. I traveled most of Europe with different Romani groups before sailing to America.”
“I’m surprised they let you travel with them,” he said quietly. “I understood the Romani didn’t embrace outsiders.”